Spontaneous Chicken Combustion?


Delaware: Coffins Grove telephone operator Gus Braedecker lost his entire chicken livestock on the evening of October 6. How exactly this happened is still a mystery.

     "I go out to the back yard every day after work around six," explains Braedecker. "I've got a few acres here in town and I like to keep chicken and sheep to sell when the season comes. Anyway, I'd just fed the animals and was just shooing the chickens into their roost when I saw one run from the back of the field squawking bloody murder---but it was on fire!"

     Then Braedecker watched in horror as, one by one, the rest of his chickens erupted into balls of feathery fire. He tried to grab them and smother the flames, but the panicking chickens dodged away from his reach. Some of the chickens found their way into the coop, setting the small building on fire. Braedecker ran to for a hose but returned to the scene to find his chickens were dead and the coop was beyond saving.

     "It's a good thing that these animals weren't my bread and butter. Only lost a couple score. But still, it's a mighty weird way to lose your livestock."

     None of Braedecker's small farm's wiring was found to be faulty and has been ruled out as a possible start to the fires. On the other hand, local veterinarian Linda Potremko thinks there may be a more organic explanation.

     "Animals contain many chemicals that are ordinarily very flammable, including sulfur and the methane found in the stomach," she explains. "It is certainly possible the chickens ate decomposing grain and that gasses from both the grain and the chickens' stomachs may have set off a combustion reaction. It would be the first time I have ever heard of such a thing, of course."

     Gus Braedecker is still unsatisfied.

     "I'd believe one chicken burning 'cause of stuff in its belly going haywire---but all forty birds? No, they're something weird going on here," Braedecker chuckles. "Let's just hope the sheep don't start sending off fireworks next."

        





Back to this Issue Contents
sigil16.jpg